On Wednesday (30/6), 10x Entertainment released a documentary video to prove that Woojin, a former Stray Kids member, was innocent of allegations of sexual harassment. Check out the full explanation below.
The case of alleged sexual harassment by Woojin, a former Stray Kids member, is back in the spotlight. The reason is that on Wednesday (30/6), Woojin's agency shared a documentary video titled "FINGER KILLER" to prove his innocence.
Back in September 2020, Woojin was accused of sexual harassment by two anonymous netizens on Twitter, namely @Qp1qsQkw2xQY0IK (A) and @a1b3c4s9 (B). The accusation itself has been denied by Woojin's agency, 10x Entertainment. However, because of the weight of the statements of the two netizens, this controversy has not completely subsided.
After the year passed, the agency was again determined to prove Woojin's innocence. To substantiate its claims, the agency includes a number of supporting evidences such as the following:
1. Pictures
In one of the original stories against Woojin, A uploaded a photo of alcohol at a bar and claimed that Woojin was there. He claimed to meet Woojin on April 29, the same day Woojin uploaded a photo to Instagram with the same shirt as in the photo.
But in FINGER KILLER, the agency stated that the photo was stolen by someone else. After struggling to reverse the search for photo images, the agency was finally able to find the original photo owner who eventually became known to be a whiskey fan.
According to the agency, the original photo was uploaded to Instagram on August 31, 8 days before the tweet was posted and 4 months after the meeting in April. In an exclusive interview with Teen Vogue, it was finally revealed that the owner of the photo was not aware that the photo was being used without his permission.
2. Agency
Shortly after 10x Entertainment talked about the claims against Woojin, there were many people who suspected that the agency was not real. The reason is, the official 10x Entertainment account was only created on the day the controversy arose and the agency logo seems to have been taken from an Argentine furniture company. Additionally, 10x Entertainment's website redirects to a free page on Notion, the app used for taking notes.
Regarding these suspicions, 10x Entertainment revealed that the registration of the company and its business on FINGER KILLER, was carried out together with the Naver Maps listing and the vlog clip where Woojin visited the office.
3. Woojin's Instagram
After the controversy broke out, Woojin's Instagram was blocked due to other user reports. This refers to Facebook and Instagram's terms of service, which do not allow sex offenders to have accounts on these platforms.
However, in the FINGER KILLER documentary, the agency claimed to have sent documents to Instagram to recover Woojin's account. The request was finally approved, so Woojin's account was reinstated. This also proves that Woojin is not a sex offender.
4. Woojin's statement
According to the documentary FINGER KILLER, Woojin's statement posted on social media was mistranslated. While Woojin's statement was reported as an apology, it was never meant that way (admitting the accusations). The agency even included the truth of Woojin's statement as follows:
"Hello, it's Kim Woojin. Something absurd happened to me today. I want to catch up with the fans while I'm at it. Someone spread a strange rumor on Twitter and deactivated the account…… I've never met the person and have never been to this place. mentioned," Woojin said in his statement.
He continued, "My fans must be shocked. But don't worry too much because it's not true. I recently signed with a like-minded agency and am currently preparing for solo activities. The agency will be taking legal action against the false accusers, and further responses will be done by them. Please don't worry. I will contact you guys. Thank you."
5. Accuser
With the help of Woojin's fans, 10x Entertainment stated that the agency was able to find B as well as the user of account C who first retweeted the accusation to thousands of followers and spread it on the internet. The documentary explains that the account B used was originally created for fans of another K-Pop group as evidenced by the account's original Twitter username.
Another tweet shows that C once tweeted that they were the creators of the acknowledgment account tthem, and show that they know each other. In the process of revealing their identities, fans finally found their version of the email address.
Further investigation by the agency revealed that the email address belonged to a Brazilian student with the initials "T. V.". He is a student at an international school in South Korea.
After the fan was contacted via an Instagram DM, B stated, "I don't know about the email right now. I didn't access the email, because I'm no longer linked to (the name of the censored school)." B continued that he did create a genuine confession account, but later handed it over to C.
In the end, the documentary stated that even though the accuser did not know Woojin, he still posted negative accusations about him. And overall, the agency considers this case as, "A story about ruining someone's life just for fun." The agency also stated that the lawsuit against the netizen is ongoing.
(wk/eval)
